Thursday, March 23, 2006

"Ssssssnakes On A Plane" -- The Movie

Talk about the tail wagging the dog. New Line had a silly B movie named Snakes on a Plane that got a lot more fun when Samuel L. Jackson signed on for the lead. He said quite rightly that when you read that title, you either want to see the movie or you don't. Me, I want to see it. The movie was shunted around and they even probably decided to change to B movie title to something more generic. But online fans went crazy for the concept, going so far as to compose songs, fiction and even a mock ad where a Samuel L. Jackson sound-alike shouted the immortal line: "I want these motherf***ing snakes off this motherf***ing plane!" Then fans demanded the line appear in the movie. Remarkably, the studio went back for reshoots to amp up the intensity (since the movie was borderline R, they decided to go all the way) and Jackson did indeed record that line. The entire story is in the Hollywood Reporter. But of course you'll also be tempted to go to the fan website Snakes on a blog and adopt SoaP -- a spin on "stuff happens" -- as your new online catch-phrase of the day.